1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved apparatus and method for coordinating messages from a plurality of email accounts.
2. Description of the Related Art
E-mail has become an irreplaceable tool in today's business environment. Virtually all corporate employees rely on e-mail in one way or another to communicate both externally with customers and internally with other employees. In addition, most e-mail users have at least one personal e-mail account. The personal e-mail account may be provided by the user's Internet Service Provider (e.g., Pacific Bell, AT&T Worldnet,™ America Online,™ . . . etc), or by an Internet Web site (e.g., Yahoo™ Mail or Hotmail™).
One problem which exists with this scenario is that users may find it difficult to coordinate among a plurality of different e-mail accounts. For example, while a user may check his/her corporate e-mail account throughout the day while at work, the user may not remember to, or may not be able to, check his/her personal e-mail account. Similarly, while at home in the evening or on weekends, the user may only have access to his/her personal e-mail account. Thus, if the user sends an e-mail from his/her personal account to a business associate, the user may not be able to review the business associate's reply until the user returns home and logs in to his/her personal e-mail account. Conversely, if the user sends an e-mail from his/her corporate account to a friend, the user may not be able to access the friend's reply until the user returns to work and logs in to his/her personal e-mail account. Even if a user is able to access both e-mail accounts from the same location, requiring the user to log into two or more different e-mail systems is somewhat burdensome, particularly when two or more different user agents may be required on the user's desktop computer and/or wireless client (e.g., Microsoft Outlook™ and Lotus Notes™).
The foregoing problem is further exacerbated by the fact that many e-mail systems work with different, incompatible e-mail standards. The two most common e-mail standards are the Post Office Protocol 3 (“POP3”) and the Internet Messaging Access Protocol (“IMAP”).
POP3 is commonly used for Internet e-mail accounts. A POP3 server temporarily stores incoming e-mail messages until they are downloaded by a logged in user. The user may configure the server to either delete the e-mail messages as soon as they are downloaded or wait until the user indicates that they should be deleted. POP3 is a relatively simple protocol with limited configurable options. All pending messages and attachments are downloaded from a single e-mail folder on the server to a single e-mail folder on the user's client computer or wireless device (i.e., the user agent's “Inbox”). Messages are identified based on a unique message identification code.
IMAP is another common, and somewhat more sophisticated, e-mail standard which is widely used for both Internet e-mail accounts and corporate e-mail accounts. IMAP4 is the latest version. Unlike POP3, it provides a message database in which messages can be archived in folders (e.g., inbox, sent mail, saved mail, . . . etc) and e-mailboxes that can be shared between users. IMAP also provides improved integration with Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (“MIME”), the protocol used to attach files to e-mail messages (e.g., users can read only message headers without having to automatically accept and wait for the attached files to download).